The present invention relates to an electronic component and a method for manufacturing the same. More specifically, the present invention relates to a technique for improving reliability of an electronic component, which is formed by laminating a conducting film and an insulating film, by enhancing resistance of an interlayer connector.
Today, there are offered various discrete components such as chip capacitors, chip inductors or chip resistors and various chip electronic components such as electronic devices each including a combination of multiple active elements and passive elements (hereinafter also simply referred to as chips). These electronic components generally include laminated structures formed by stacking conducting films made of conductive materials and insulating films made of insulative materials. A chip includes various functional element units corresponding to the type of the chip, such as capacitor electrodes, inductor conductors, resistor conductors and impedance matching lines.
Moreover, numerous electric connectors are provided inside a chip in order to construct these functional element units or to electrically connect the functional element units to one another. For example, a via hole penetrating an insulating film is used for connecting conductors that are laminated, as described above, with the insulating film interposed therebetween. In addition, terminal electrodes are provided on an outer surface (such as a side surface, a bottom surface or a top surface) of the chip to achieve electrical and mechanical connection to the outside (such as a mounting board), and these terminal electrodes are also connected to the functional element units.
Further, a protective film is provided on the outer surface of the chip in order to: prevent short circuits, disconnection, degradation, and corrosion inside the chip; and protect the chip from various treatment liquids used in a manufacturing process or physical external forces, damages, moisture, and the like applied after the chip is mounted as a product.
Additionally, examples of the electronic components are disclosed in: Japanese Patent Application Publications Nos. Hei 9-270342, Hei 11-154612 and Hei 9-270325 (see FIG. 7, Paragraphs 0045 and 0049) (hereinafter referred to as Patent Documents 1, 2 and 3, respectively).